


Shared Spaces

by Tattered_Dreams



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: 11!Verse, Boys Kissing, Camping, Caves, Emotional Shit, M/M, Newt was cold okay, This drabble got out of hand, beginning of relationship, discussions, frypan is having a great time, frypan sleeps in a hugely inconvenient place, only at the end, sexual stuff too, sleeping in a truck, there arent enough blankets, vaguely set between tst and tdc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 04:13:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13967091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tattered_Dreams/pseuds/Tattered_Dreams
Summary: Based on a prompt from discord about cold hands. It got wildly out of hand.Set vaguely between tst and tdc in the gap.-The cave is bitterly cold and Thomas shares his blanket. Things...happen-This is complete. I am also going to hell some more.





	Shared Spaces

It’s a mutual decision, entering the caves.

It’s a winding tunnel that’s etched all the way through a jagged rock formation. It’s barely big enough for the trucks, and its slow going, but it’s a direct route and it’s necessary.

The Scorch has always been unsympathetic, but in the past few days, the sun burns even hotter. The air rises from the sand in rippling waves, searing into flesh. The salt flats burn through the soles of their boots. Half of them are light headed with heat stroke and just that morning, Harriet saw a dust cloud on the horizon.

They’re all in agreement when they spot the cliff face and see the shadowed opening at its base. It quickly becomes apparent that they may have found a reprieve from the Scorch, but the cave has its own trials.

The draft blasting through the narrow, warped tunnel is bitter.

The enclosed space, deep in the cliff provides protection from the sun, from the building sand storm, but the wind catches at the entrance, funnelling straight through. It shreds the atmosphere; howls as it carves into the crevices of old rock. The trucks rattle under the onslaught, the beams of the headlights barely cutting through the blackness.

Eventually they’ve been going too long and have to call a halt.

It’s not an ideal place for camp, but it’s the best they have. They’re out of sight, perfectly hidden. Vince sets up a few sleeping bags behind an outcrop where the wind can't reach. It’s almost warm there, but it’s a small, cramped space and not enough room for all of them. Brenda has already claimed a spot, and Thomas knows Jorge won't want her out of his sight.

Thomas isn’t sleeping too well anyway. Better that someone else benefits from the bed roll and the flat ground.

"Its all yours," Thomas tells Vince as everyone starts to quieten down. "Seriously. Get some sleep, man."

"And you're camping where?" Vince asks, though he's already throwing himself down onto a thermal bag and zipping up his coat.

Thomas looks back across the cave. One of the trucks still has the headlights on, shining out a dull, low beam. It’s gritty and not far reaching, but it’s the only reason he can see anything at all. The vehicles are lined up in their convoy, the engines cooling off. Other than the sleeping gear and a few flashlights, they’ve not unpacked.

They don’t plan to stay long.

The truck in the middle is where Thomas left Newt and Frypan to check on Vince and Brenda. Honestly, even if he thought he’d sleep any better on the ground, he wants to be with them.

"I'll camp in the truck," he says. "I'll be fine. Slept in worse places."

Vince considers him, and then shrugs. "Fair enough. Sleep tight, Kid."

Thomas nods. There’s not much more he can do. They both know sleep doesn’t come easy right now, but nor is it something that talking will fix. He crosses back through the weak shafts of light – passing Jorge who gives him a solid pat on the shoulder – and then pulls himself up into the back seat of the truck beside Newt.

As soon as he's pulled the door closed, the headlights turn off and they're plunged into pitch blackness. Thomas breathes in the dank, earthy air as he shoves his backpack into place on the bench as a pillow then blindly shuffles into a comfortable position.

That’s when his arm knocks into something solid.

"Shit, sorry," He mutters over the sound of Frypan's soft snores. He’s already down and from the brief look Thomas got before the lights sputtered out, he’s found some form of workable position in the front passenger seat.

"S'Okay, Tommy," Newt says back, voice soft and barely there in the dark, but touched with humour. "I 'spect the truck's been through worse."

"I thought it was you," Thomas tells him. "Wait - where even are you? This is not a big seat and I'm taking up, like...so much space right now-"

"Staying clear so I don't get beaten up," Newt says, but even as Thomas hears the words, he feels a hand curl around his wrist and his breath rushes sharply out, body flinching beneath the grip.

"Shit- Newt - you're freezing!"

"Slim it," Newt replies, and he's already letting go. "Don't wake up Fry. We're in a wind trap, I'll be fine."

Thomas can still feel the cold imprint of Newt's fingers in his skin, and his mind spirals. He can't see anything at all, only has sound to orient himself, and though Newt's voice sounds stable, all he's picturing now is the other boy huddled against the window and shivering. It’s not like they've got that many blankets or provisions to go around.

It’s not like Thomas thinks he’ll sleep anyway, but he’s not even going to bother with appearances if all he can see behind his eyelids is that.

"Hey, Newt?" he asks, tentative but determined.

"What?"

"Come here."

Thomas hears the way Newt sucks in a sharp breath, and then the rushing silence as he holds it.

“I’m serious,” Thomas presses. “We have two blankets in here and Fry stole the better one. If I just-“ he shifts, aligns himself against the back of the bench seat and holds up the blanket even if he knows Newt can’t see it. “-There’s room.”

“We’ll both fall off that seat like that, Tommy,” Newt says, though there’s the breath of a laugh in his tone. “Go to sleep.”

“Come here or I shout at Fry that I found a scorpion.”

Newt snorts a laugh. “Fine, you dumb shank. Fine.”

Thomas registers the way weight shifts in the blackness, fingers moving out and landing, careful but without apology on his leg, then tracing up to his hip. Newt is trying to orient himself, Thomas knows that, but still…it sends sensation shooting through his bloodstream and it hurts, burns in the worst way because there’s nothing he can do about it right here, right now.

But then Newt is lying down on the seat of the truck beside him and Thomas lowers the blanket over them both. Their legs can’t quite stretch out, but its close enough, and even with Thomas’s back crushed into the rear of the seat, there’s really not much room. They’re pressed together. Thomas was mainly concerned about Newt freezing but this is a very welcome bonus to sharing body heat and blankets.

“If I fall off of this, you can do the explaining,” Newt tells him.

He’s so close; his jacket chilled from the cave air under the arm Thomas is holding across his waist but his breathing is heated. The half teasing, half serious exhale starts fires under skin as it flutters against Thomas’ neck, the words sliding across his collarbone, staying warm beneath the blanket.

“You’re not going to fall,” Thomas murmurs back. He can hear his own racing pulse in his ears and is pretty sure Newt must be able to feel it. He’s trying to ignore it. They need rest, Frypan is right there, and he isn’t even one hundred percent sure that Newt… “Go to sleep.”

But even as he says it, he can feel the way Newt shifts against him. There’s a pull in his breathing and his body twists, tensing under Thomas’s arm.

“Newt?”

“Sorry,” Newt murmurs. “Just…”

“What is it?” Thomas can’t see a thing, even knowing Newt is barely inches from him, and it’s frustrating suddenly. There’s a forlorn kind of note in the other boy’s voice and Thomas hates it. “Are you still cold?”

Newt makes a soft, very soft noise in the back of his throat and his body rocks into Thomas’s. Thomas feels his breath snag in his chest and he goes very still. He’s acutely aware of how very narrow the bench seat is.

“Not so much,” Newt tells him and his voice has taken on a new, rougher quality. Thomas’s bloodstream is full of lightning. “It’s…my leg. Just…Don’t worry, Tommy.”

“No, tell me,” Thomas whispers to him, firm.

Newt sighs. He’s so fucking close.

“Just that it can ache after too long,” he finally says. “It’s better if I support it. I’ll be fine, okay? Better that it aches than I freeze?” He’s teasing again, forcing away the reluctant, shamed tone in an effort to distract.

Thomas notices, goes to protest --

But then Newt’s mouth brushes over the hammering pulse in his throat and every thought he has burns away into nothing. The breath he sucks in is sharp, crashing through his lungs and the darkness presses in, an illusion of complete isolation that is far, far too tempting.

It’s an accident. There’s no way it was anything but an acc-

_Fuck._

Newt’s mouth slides across his skin again, but this time his lips are moving, pressing a seal over Thomas’s pulse. The sucking sensation is delicate, a teasing, careful venture and something impossible to prepare for. Thomas groans, barely cuts it off in time, the smallest part of his brain remembering they’re not alone here, as much as it feels that way. The faintest flick of a hot tongue rasps over the tender flesh and wild yearning sears into bone. Thomas shudders as it tears through him; body rippling out of his control.

Newt hums darkly, a sound of mixed amusement and wanting.

The vibration sinks right through Thomas and into the worn rear seat of the truck.

He feels pulled, strained like a bowstring, kinetic energy crackling through his nerves. He isn’t sure how the world is still so empty beyond the confines of the blanket because he’s burning up, vividly alive. The sound of his own heartbeat is loud in his ears; he can feel it pounding under Newt’s lips, blazing hot in the pit of his stomach.

Newt pulls back, but it doesn’t help. Thomas’s skin prickles, flashes with cold fire, newly exposed to the night air and the sensation of the kiss remains, lingering, pulling deep enough that it constricts his heart. He can feel the makeshift pillow – his ratty backpack – rustle as Newt settles his head again, replacing the tiny gap between them.

Thomas abruptly doesn’t care in the slightest that it’s testing himself more than he can probably handle.

That’s too far away.

He curls his arm tighter around Newt’s waist again and – no he didn’t imagine it. Newt makes a tiny, caught breath of a sound. It whispers against Thomas’ throat and burrows in. Thomas is pretty sure he isn’t breathing but he manages to mutter, “You’re on the edge.”

Newt’s voice is barely even a murmur but reckless in the universe under the shared blanket. “Seems like you are.”

And it feels like the world is disintegrating.

“Tommy,” Newt breathes, just a second later, his voice lilted with amusement. “Breathing might help you right about now.”

“That’s a bad idea,” Thomas struggles to reply.

“Is it?”

“Yes,” he bites and he hears the feather-soft little sound that Newt makes in response; half exhale and half something darker, something that pulses.

His body is already responding to it, and it doesn’t care that they can’t do this right now.

Newt blows a breath across his throat and - _fuck_ – he’s praying it was an exhale, just an exhale because he can’t-

“Did you know that Fry refused to sleep outside because he really is afraid of scorpions? I guess Jorge got to him.” Newt’s voice is a murmur, more of the same; close against his skin, purposeful, but even the mention of Frypan isn’t the cooling deterrent that it should be – that Thomas really needs it to be. “I didn’t think it’d be comfortable over there but he fell asleep while you were still having your little meeting with Vince.”

Thomas is sure he’s hearing things when he catches the odd note of something like bite, annoyance in Newt’s voice but that thought is quickly gone. He’s not sure he’s hearing the whispers that press into his skin, let alone thinking enough to work out tone. Even the vicious howl of the wind outside of their cocoon is muted and distant against the daring thrum of his blood.

Newt isn’t done. Thomas isn’t sure exactly what it is he’s doing, but it’s slowly ruining him.

“Good thing you could separate yourself from him long enough to come back alone…There isn’t enough room here for him, too.”

Thomas has to swallow hard. There’s barely enough room for the two of them and it’s making his heart twist up; Newt pliant, burrowed into him. His own body doesn’t feel real. Vince isn’t welcome right now. Nor is Frypan, in all honesty.

And then Newt’s saying it, low, touched with wanting, like the thoughts were shared to begin with. “There’s barely enough room for us. We’ll just be on the edge - all night.”

Thomas feels something low inside him snap in half like lightning splitting the sky.

“Newt, shut up.”

He’s half begging at this point. Every soft murmur, the tone treading a path between teasing and intent, scatters warm breaths across his skin, across the very place Newt has already kissed him. The sensation is fading – and he hates that – but the memory is almost all he can think about. He’s holding himself together with willpower only.

“Why?” Newt asks, still with that delicate balance, but edged in something rich and dark, the same sound in the back of his throat ages before.

_Fuck._

Thomas has never wished for anything more, right now, than that Frypan had decided to crash somewhere else.

He steals a breath, and decides to just tell him, “Because…if you say anything else I’m going to take it as an invitation.”

A moment passes. Then Newt moves against him.

Fingers slide down his ribs, hips press into his and his body rocks at the slow rasp of friction. Newt’s shoulder shifts forward, the backpack pillow rustling and the blanket concealing them both slacks for an instant before Thomas tightens his grip, more out of reflex than anything. Newt is crushing him with precision slowness into the back of the seat.

“I thought you were warming me up,” he says, barely more than a breath, but purposeful, right into Thomas’s ear.

_That’s an invite._

But still…he can’t just…

“Newt?” He needs to check, even though his voice is tight, hoarse.

“What?” Newt replies. He sounds just as wrecked, like he’s trembling, like he’s falling apart. “You need me to write it down?”

If Thomas had a thread left on any sense of self control, it’s gone now.

He stretches across the small space in the dark. His fingers curl into the back of Newt’s jacket, tugging impossibly closer. Despite everything that has come before, the slowly building knot of yearning that’s made its home in his heart, spitting fireworks with every drawn in breath, the world goes still when his mouth finds Newt’s.

The kiss soothes all of the wild desperation surging through his bloodstream and coiling deep inside his body. This isn’t something inflaming and needful. It has the potential, God does it. He can already feel that in the smooth, deliberate press of Newt’s body, the way they kiss like its easy as breathing. This could be explosive, could burn him up and set fire to the world, but right now it’s not.

This is slow and quiet; a soft, tentatively new exploration in the darkness. This is discovery. This is already enough to level the planet and change his life.

Whatever else happens, wherever they end up, whatever else is taken from him, Thomas wants to keep this.

Newt’s mouth is soft, warm and, and he tastes faintly of honey and tea leaves. Thomas has been too focused on surviving but right now, he wonders vaguely how long he may have wanted this but not allowed himself to think about it. Somehow it feels like his life was leading him here, and he regrets things – regrets the losses and the suffering – but he doesn’t regret that his choices have brought him to this cave, this worn leather seat, underneath this blanket with this person.

Thomas breaks the kiss.

He has to gasp in a breath, his mind swirling and dizzied; his pulse hammering. Newt is still right there, so close, sharing oxygen, the silence close and thick. The howl of air snagging through the cave all around them is from another world.

He’s not sure what to say, if he should say anything. Breathing in tandem feels like something they’ve always done. This feels…okay, good, like it doesn’t need explanation or assurance.

Newt moves again, twists his shoulder and it allows just enough room for him to bring his arm up. That’s all the warning Thomas gets.

Fingers curl at the back of his neck, and in almost the same instant, Newt is kissing him again. For a moment it’s the same; so quiet, so delicate, a gentle tide in his blood, and the feeling of timelessness unfolding in the total blackness.

And then Newt shifts, angles his neck up and kisses with purpose, teeth scraping over Thomas’s lip. He bites very lightly, sucks at the brutalised flesh and then seals their mouths together. His tongue curls – fuck, that’s new - slick, hot, and Newt has to swallow the sound Thomas can’t hold back in time.

Newt pulls back and Thomas is left spiralling. This isn’t quiet and intimate like before. This time he feels electric, distinctly aware he’s being seduced and only barely managing to care about the situation they’re in.

“Fuck,” he breathes sharply. “Newt. Fuck –we should – we can’t-“

“Probably not,” Newt agrees, and there’s a note of amusement in his voice, though it’s low and cracked, his accent thick. “We should probably sleep.”

“Right,” Thomas manages. “Right. But-“ he can’t. Not right now. Not with this feeling so new and unsolved and…like its waiting. “But we…are we okay?”

“Any reason we wouldn’t be?” Newt asks. The backpack rustles, Newt’s head resting down again. He sounds calm, relaxed, his body a warm steady weight against Thomas’s own.

“I-No. Just…this. It isn’t…” Thomas groans at himself, his own inability to properly work out what he’s asking.

Newt kissed him.

If there’s one thing in this ravaged world he shouldn’t be afraid of, he thinks it should be this. And he’s reckless about everything else.

“Just as long as this wasn’t because – I don’t know – we’re stressed or tired or because you’re upset because of Minho or WCKD or…any of it. I mean, if it was I-I get it, I just-”

Newt makes a small sound, a catch of breath at the back of his throat. “It’s not because of that, Tommy.”

Thomas breathes easier; the last remnants of a doubt he hadn’t even realised he was harbouring snatched away from him. “Good,” he says.

He can hear the smile in Newt’s whisper as he asks, “Good?”

Thomas nods. He can still taste the other boy on the roof of his mouth; feel the teeth on his lip, the slide of a tongue against his. “Yeah,” he says, but that’s when he’s reminded yet again of what lies in way beyond the blanket over their heads.

“Wait – what about Frypan?”

Newt makes a choked noise of hastily subdued hilarity and surprise. “If you think I’m sharing you, you have another thing coming,” he says, fiercely through the dark. “And so does he.”

“Oh my God-No,” Thomas quickly says, finding the entire thing wildly funny as well as…well, just wrong. “I mean it’s only the three of us left. I don’t want him to feel, I don’t know – alone? Just because…”

“Because what?” Newt probes, gently teasing.

Thomas wants more than anything now to be able to see him just so a withering look wouldn’t be wasted. “Because you and I are doing this.”

“Fry knows.”

Newt’s voice is still carefully quiet, but it’s also real; a certainty heavy in the ease with which he says it.

“Knows about…what?” Thomas asks, confused.

He couldn’t know they’re doing this – he’s fast asleep and this is definitely, definitely new. Did he know Thomas might have felt this way? That – his breathing snatches – that Newt might?

“You mean he knows that we…?”

“He knows about me. That I’d thought about this,” Newt clarifies. His voice is so soft. Thomas is just starting to feel sleep pull at him as well, but this feels like something he needs to ask now. “Though he probably knew you did, too. I think the only person who didn’t know about you was you.”

Thomas’s heart turns over. It’s not altogether unpleasant; it doesn’t come with any feeling of mortification or surprise. Not after everything.

“At first,” he admits. “But I’ve known for a while, just…too occupied, and not really sure if you- Wait. So you knew? About me?”

“Wasn’t sure,” Newt says. “Figured the things I wanted were getting in the way. Fry says I don’t think clearly when it comes to you anyway. I couldn’t tell.”

“You kissed me, though,” Thomas reminds him. He can hear his own voice slowing down, the way his body sinks further into the seat.

Newt huffs a breath. “Felt like the right time to find out. And anyway, you kissed me.”

“I did tell you to shut up,” Thomas reminds him delicately, amused.

“Figured something would make you snap eventually,” Newt murmurs.

“Yeah,” Thomas breathes, the exhaustion creeping up ever stronger. “You.”

And then they both fall quiet.

He thinks he may actually have succumbed to sleep for a few moments when He feels Newt move against him, and then the pull in his breathing that is not at all like the ones before. Its like that first one he made – how long ago has it been? And Thomas is jolted with the reminder.

When this all started, Newt’s leg had been hurting him.

“Newt?” Thomas asks.

“Go back to sleep,” Newt tells him. “I’m fine.”

“You said your leg was better if you supported it,” Thomas remembers.

“Which isn’t easy. I’ve coped before.”

An unhappy sound rolls at the back of Thomas’s throat. He shifts his legs, lifts his knee and drops it across Newt’s injured one, carefully pressing down along the length to keep it still.

Newt exhales sharply against his collarbone.

“Better?” Thomas asks. It’s strange; the movement, all that it implies, is enough to trip his heart, but he just feels the easy intimacy of it tugging him back to sleep. Newt is pressed into him, so warm, solid and real. If they were cold before, they’re not anymore. Their own breaths fill the encased pitch blackness.

“Thanks, Tommy,” is the last thing Thomas hears, lost in the dark.

…

Newt is woken up by the clanking of metal. The sound reverberates in the acoustics of the cave, making it echo ever louder inside his head. It’s a hideous racket; ear-splitting, obnoxious. What the bloody hell are they doing? Do they have any--

_Wait._

What is the time anyway?

They’re not in the Scorch right now. They made camp in the caves; tucked well out of sight and so far from either end of the rocky tunnel that no light could reach them. The wind funnelling through had been bitter and chilling. The only reason Newt is warm right now is…

And that’s when the memories invade, swiftly and easily overpowering any annoyance he feels at the loud clamour just outside.

_Thomas._

Newt’s head is pillowed on the backpack, tucked in with his forehead resting against Thomas’s collarbone. He’s held securely on the edge of the rear seat of the truck by the arm bound tightly around his waist beneath his open jacket. The blanket is thin, weak, but it’s tucked over their heads and blocks out the world.

Thomas is still asleep. Newt can’t see anything but he can hear the slow, even breaths right by his ear and is intimately aware of how Thomas’s chest rises and falls; pressed right into him. The bench is narrow but that’s an excuse.

And that’s when a flare of dim light glows through the fabric.

Newt doesn’t want to – he really doesn’t want to – but he braces himself, and draws back out of Thomas’s grip. He’s wary of the edge of the seat, doesn’t shift too far, but enough to free his arm to pull back the blanket.

Someone has turned on the headlights of another truck and in the dipped beams, shadows move about outside.

They’re packing up.

Newt manages to extract himself from the cocoon.

Thomas may be asleep, but he’s still got a sure hold on him. Newt already believed the other boy wouldn’t let him fall, but this is proof of some kind, something tangible. It makes his heart pulse; that someone, that this person, wants to hold onto him even when he’s let the world go. But Newt breaks through the grip gently – heck knows none of them have been sleeping enough. If Thomas can stay there a little longer, he should.

Already Newt can feel the way the air outside of the blanket, away from Thomas, is still as cold as ever. He’s just stretching for the door handle, intending to drop outside and see if any help is needed, when it’s flung open for him. The cutting draft sweeps through, batters into the truck and Newt feels it prickle over his skin.

Frypan stands in the newly opened gap, a smirk on his face that is inherently terrifying for how very smug it is. He props an elbow on the door, taking in Newt with a mix of mischief and genuine happiness, and then his eyes flick across to Thomas.

The other boy is just stirring. Newt feels his chest constrict, kinetic energy pulsing in his veins as he watches the way Thomas frowns, his half awake mind slowly starting to process the empty space Newt left. In the beam of the headlight, the bench looks so very narrow.

“Looks like you two slept through your good morning,” Frypan says.

Newt shoots him a dark look. Figures that was coming.

It’s strange to him now, having sight. It’s somehow jarring and yet right, real that one of the most intimate moments of his entire life happened in a dark so consuming that he couldn’t see it at all.

Frypan doesn’t seem to take notice. “Well there’s some bread left if you want it. It’ll go off before the hardtack so we’re saving that. Unless you want any of that dehydrated soup shit.”

Its no secret how much Frypan dislikes those ration packets. Vince got an earful about them the first night he passed them around.

“We’re good, thanks,” Newt says. He rubs at his eyes, tries to shake himself more awake. All his body remembers is warmth and dark and pressing Thomas back into the seat behind them. It’s not a conducive mindset to a rescue mission. “I’ll get some bread.”

“Fuck,” Thomas’s voice comes from behind them, rough, weary, and Newt looks back. He’s just waking up, hand spearing through his hair as he slowly blinks. “Never thought I’d miss the Scorch,” he mutters, still thick with sleep.

Newt snorts. Humour. It’s a better reaction than letting a shudder tear up his spine. “Might be cold here, Tommy,” Newt says. “But the Scorch has heatstroke.”

Thomas groans and sinks straight back down.

Newt feels his body tighten up just at the sight.

This is really not conducive to a rescue mission. He needs to fix this.

“Its freezing,” he says, turning back to Frypan. “We need to get moving.”

But Frypan looks wildly entertained, still beaming at them, swaying in the doorway, propped on his elbow.

“Well it looks like he kept you nice and warm, Shank. Maybe we need to switch places tonight.”

Newt’s heart turns over.

He knows – absolutely knows – that Frypan is kidding, giving him a hard time, that he doesn’t mean it even in the most insignificant of ways…but still there’s a bitter, burning flare of hot possessiveness that catches light under his skin.

And it’s ridiculous. He knows it is because they’ve always lived in each other’s back pockets. The Glade was the same before more of it in the Scorch. But right now, this moment feels different. This is his.

“Mmm,” Thomas hums from behind them before Newt can work out just how best to reply without sounding mental. “I’m not sharing. Get your own heater, man.”

Frypan cackles. He pitches against the door; half folded over and twisted up with laughter. As far as Newt’s concerned, it wasn’t that funny. Newt’s eyes catch on Brenda across the cave floor, the way she looks up, frowning with her bedroll bundled under her arm. Her eyes narrow, seem to take in the scene, and then a smirk of her own pulls across her mouth.

Well that’s enough of that.

Newt kicks the door.

It dislodges Fry’s elbow and he flails, arms wind-milling wildly. He teeters on the spot and for a second Newt contemplates giving him an extra shove, but then he crashes backwards onto the ground. He hits with a groan that turns a few heads. Harriet’s hand jumps to her shotgun and Vince plucks it away from her on his way to his own truck without breaking stride. A second passes and then Frypan starts laughing again. The camp are ignoring them now.

“Oh I need to be- the one to tell Minho,” He garbles. “The look- on his face – when he realises – you Shanks got a clue – without him there.”

Newt quirks an eyebrow impassively, sliding down from the truck. He doesn’t look back – _mindset. Conducive._ _Mission_ – but he can hear Thomas actually getting up. The world is coming for them again.

“You can tell Minho what you like,” Newt says, and Frypan falls quiet, suspicion in his eyes as he looks up at Newt from the floor. “So long as you find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”


End file.
